Y’all, I am so excited to share this with you!
This novella was a work of heart that I actually wrote by hand in a journal over several months while working on other projects.
This story came to me all of a sudden. I was awakened with the entire introduction, word for word, and a strange drifting sensation I haven’t experienced since the last time I was on a boat all day (it’s been years). I typed it out into my phone as fast as I could before it faded back into the ether of all lost story ideas and dreams. The next morning, I was sure it would be like so many other half-asleep musings. To my surprise, I still felt as strongly about it as I had when it first came to me. So, I prayed about the direction of this story and just very clearly knew where it was supposed to go.
At the same time, my husband was preparing to leave for a month long work trip. I am always apprehensive before these things, but I don’t normally allow myself to focus on negative thoughts and feelings to protect my heart from a now-mostly-conquered battle against anxiety. However, while writing this, I knew it would be important to allow myself to follow the rabbit trails of those thoughts and fears in order to process how a woman might feel if the worst had indeed happened.
I have fortunately never personally experienced the kind of soul-piercing grief that Erin and so many other women have, but I know how my heart panicked at the mere thought of facing life without my husband. For the first time, I allowed myself to go there in my all too-vivid imagination and that is the place where Erin began to tell me her story.
The Lord often speaks to me in vivid imagery. Water is probably the single biggest element He uses in metaphors to reach me, teach me, love me, and push me forward. I suffered from post-partum depression after delivering my third child for nearly a year and a half. During that season, God actually did speak to my heart through many of the same metaphors in Erin’s story. I remember telling my husband it was like treading water in a sea of emotion that kept threatening to drown me. God clearly told me it was time to back float after I’d grown weary of fighting the current of depression.
I’ve learned through a lot of research and experience that the cycles of processing grief and depression are often similar, so it wasn’t a stretch to write about one through the lens of the other. Ever the fighter and eternal optimist, though, I fought to get help out of that dark place and washed up on the shore ready to love motherhood once more. I knew Erin deserved the same.
So, there you have it, a little behind the scenes peek at how I came to write Erin’s story. I do hope you will read it (it’s pretty short, but a dozen early readers have all said it packs a lot into the pages). It’s FREE with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, and only 99 cents to purchase. I currently only offer it in eBook format, though if I had enough requests I suppose I might consider a paperback edition.
I’d really love to hear from you, whether about the book or sharing your own experiences. If you’re going through a dark place and I can pray for you, I would love the opportunity to do so. You can comment below or check my contact page for ways to get in touch. Be blessed today, and thank you for stopping by!
You can pick up Adrift on Amazon here.
Jaycee
